The United States unilaterally reintroduces sanctions on Iran

The government of US President Donald Trump has unilaterally declared on Saturday that all international sanctions against Iran have been reinstated and has warned that it will take measures, as well as threatening UN members who oppose them. "The United States welcomes the return of virtually all previously terminated UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and anti-Semitism," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. The foreign minister recalled in the note that in August his country initiated a procedure before the UN to re-establish all the international sanctions against Iran that were lifted with the 2015 nuclear agreement (from which Washington withdrew in 2018), arguing that Teheran had failed to fulfil its obligations. 
 
However, the majority of the Security Council-including the other powers with the right of veto-consider that the United States does not have the right to use this mechanism, as it abandoned the pact in 2018. Thus, the Security Council has not taken any action, which in the opinion of the US government means that the sanctions will be automatically re-imposed this Saturday, when the one-month deadline established in this procedure is met. 
 
Pompeo said this Saturday that the notification his country gave the body in August "initiated a 30-day process that has led to the revocation of previously terminated UN sanctions, which took effect at 8pm EST (00.00 GMT Sunday) on 19 September". The head of US diplomacy explained that his country has taken "this decisive action" not only because it considers that Teheran has not fulfilled its obligations in the nuclear agreement, but also "because the Security Council has failed to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran, which has been in force for 13 years". 
 
"The Security Council's inaction would have paved the way for Iran to buy all kinds of conventional weapons from 18 October," Pompeo stressed. Fortunately for the world, the US has taken responsible action to prevent this from happening". Accordingly, the US has begun the process of "restoring virtually all of the completed UN sanctions, including the arms embargo". Pompeo said that in the coming days Washigton will announce a series of measures to "strengthen the implementation of UN sanctions and hold violators accountable". 
 
And he issued a warning to countries that oppose it: "The US expects all UN members to fully comply with their obligations to implement these measures. "Apart from the arms embargo, this includes restrictions such as a ban on Iranian enrichment and reprocessing activities (of uranium), a ban on Iranian ballistic missile testing and development, and sanctions on the transfer of nuclear and missile-related technology to Iran," he detailed. 
 
And he warned that if UN members fail "to meet their obligations to implement these sanctions, the US stands ready to use its domestic authorities to impose consequences for those failures and to ensure that Iran does not reap the benefits of a UN-banned activity". France, Germany and the United Kingdom stressed on Friday that, in their view, international sanctions against Iran will continue to have no effect beyond Saturday, when the US claims that they are coming into force. 
 
In a letter to the UN Security Council, Paris, Berlin and London insisted that the US movement has no "legal effect" and therefore any action taken on its basis does not have any legal effect either. This issue is expected to be one of the focal points of the UN General Assembly, which next week will bring together virtually all the world's leaders.